God and Difference The Trinity, Sexuality, and the Transformation of Finitude [Hardcover]

God and Differenceinterlaces Christian theology with queer and feminist theory for both critical and constructive ends. Linn Marie Tonstad uses queer theory to show certain failures of Christian thinking about God, gender, and sexuality. She employs queer theory to dissect trinitarian discourse and the resonances found in contemporary Christian thought between sexual difference and difference within the trinity. Tonstad critiques a broad swath of prominent Christian theologians who either use queer theory in their work or affirm the validity of same-sex relationships, arguing that their work inadvertently promotes gendered hierarchy. This volume contributes to central debates in Christianity over divine and human personhood, gendered relationality, and the trinity, and provides original accounts of God, sexual difference, and Christian community that are both theologically rich and thoroughly queer.

Prelude.Part 1. 1. Dramas of Desire  2. Suffering Difference: Graham Wards Trinitarian Romance  3. Speaking Father Rightly: Kenotic Reformation into Sonship in Sarah Coakley  Interlude.  Part 2.  4. Patterns of Personhood in Three Variations  Part 3.  5. A Topography of the Trinitarian Imaginary: Through a Critical Mimesis to God  6. The Lord of Glory  7. Apocalyptic Ecclesiology: Temporality, Futurity, and the Reproduction of Gods Body  Postlude

Together, these essays demonstrate how rich God and Difference is, the contributions it offers to trinitarian theology and to (queer) ecclesiologies found amidst its deep rigor, its broad interdisciplinary engagement, and its both pressing and playful provocations. These engagements, as well as Tonstad's responses to them, mine some of those riches and evaluate what they might offer. -